Our friends in Grand Rapids asked if I would be willing to design and build a custom floating vanity for their daughter’s family in Massachusetts. The vanity would be installed in a renovated 1868 four-story brownstone. Intrigued by the idea of having one of my pieces in such a historic building and eager to help our dear friends’ daughter, I immediately agreed to this project!

Fortunately, my neighbor is a talented and experienced builder. When I mentioned this project to him, he shared his experience installing floating vanities and offered to help fabricate the heavy-duty brackets needed, especially since this vanity would be topped with a six-inch-thick built-up marble top with two undermount sinks installed.

I also learned that our friends’ daughter was trained as an architect, so working with her remotely on the design requirements worked well. The five-foot-wide vanity was to have four large drawers underneath, with a special finger pull profile routed into their top edges and no other hardware, for a very sleek look. With beautiful riftsawn white oak from my brother- and sister-in-law’s hardwood lumber business, the design and build of this floating vanity came together over a period of a few months. Once completed, our friends drove over from Grand Rapids, carefully packed up the completed vanity, and carried it back home. There, they constructed a shipping container for the vanity, and FedEx’d it to Massachusetts, where it was installed by the skilled contractors renovating their daughter’s family’s new home.